


spring and a storm

by kuragin



Category: Bandersnatch - Fandom, Black Mirror, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
Genre: (but like...not for good. you've all watched bandersnatch you know what i mean), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gaining control, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multiple Timelines, Rating May Change, Repressed Cinematic Universe (RCU), Stefan just wants to communicate w/Colin but the movie won't let himmmmmmm :(, Suicide, but like only lowkey lmfao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-04 03:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17296817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuragin/pseuds/kuragin
Summary: Stefan breaks script.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (...yeah, the title's a Tally Hall song, don't worry about it)
> 
> EDIT: Hey everyone! I wrote this at around 3 AM, so I'll be editing it tonight (and hopefully posting chapter 2). Thank you for reading! It means a lot :)
> 
> EDIT 2: Edited chapter 1!! Thank you for reading!

Stefan was starting to get the hang of this.

It had started in Dr. Haynes’ office: arms crossed so tight over his body he swore he could feel his ribs bending under the pressure, _knowing_ that if he would just give in and tug his earlobe, the world would stop closing in on him. He couldn’t, though. Not if he was going to see how far he could push this. He grit his teeth, pretending to process whatever Haynes was saying. Meds, maybe. It didn’t matter.

He blinked, and he was outside. The impulse was gone. Point Stefan.

He spent the car ride home staring at his hands. He imagined his dad was grateful for the silence.

Maybe he could manage this after all.

* * *

That first time around, Stefan buried his dad. A rookie mistake, but to be fair, Stefan hadn’t even wanted to kill him in the first place. He was getting better at resisting, sure—his tea knocked onto the floor instead of his computer, then set down a little too hard, then sipped calmly over the alarm bells going off on his head—but some things, he figured, were more integral to the story. Harder to resist.

He sat on the stairs, eyes glazed over, watching his own hand dial Dr. Hayes’ office number. He could try harder, if that was what they wanted.

* * *

Stefan stood at the entrance to Tuckersoft, clutching his book bag to his side.

Today was the day.

He had been around more than a few times now, and he knew the script. He also knew the way Colin’s back stiffened whenever he heard Stefan take his first steps into the office, knew the soft look in Colin’s eyes every time they shook hands for the first time.

Had that look always been there? It had taken Stefan at least eight endings to really, truly get to know Colin’s emotions, but they were far past that now. There was a growing desperation to him, and it made Stefan feel dizzy with a new kind of grief that Colin thought he didn’t remember. He took his victories where he could get them, but whoever was controlling him didn’t give him much to work with. After this many times through, even his bigger wins were just another part of the routine. First, Stefan would explain the error in _Nohzdyve_ ; later, in the conference room, Colin would explain _Bandersnatch_ to Thakur, and Stefan would feel Colin’s eyes burning holes into the side of his head, begging him to understand the exchange.

 _It’s okay_ , he would want to say, _I have an idea_. _Today’s the day_.

It was small, but it would work. Colin would know.

Stefan straightened up, readied himself to meet his new boss, and stepped further into the office. Thakur took him over to meet Colin; Stefan gripped his hand like it was the only thing keeping him alive, trying to arrange his face into something that _didn’t_ say _I’ve seen you dead a hundred times over, you fucking idiot_. Stefan was a shit actor and a human mess, but he knew whatever faces he was making would pass as regular fanboy bullshit. It always did.

It was easy from there. Demo the game, reject the offer, walk out the door. Wait for Colin.

“What do you listen to?” Right on cue.

Stefan was shaking. He needed this to work. “Hmm?”

“To get into the flow.”

Stefan kept his breath slow and even. That was the most important part of resisting, he’d realized: when everything else in his body was running at double speed, and his skull felt like it was about to split in half, he needed something steady to ground him.

“...Stefan? Music?” Colin’s eyes were narrowing. Stefan felt something warm at the center of his chest. He could do this. He could _do_ this.

“...Tho—” He threw a hand over his own mouth. **_No,_** _Stefan, come on, just—_ he screwed his eyes shut. He was _so close_ , but _God_ —

“Are you okay, Stefan?”

— _God_ , this hurt. His heart was hammering in his chest so hard he felt it in his legs, his neck, his _skull_ , and he couldn’t control his breathing anymore, didn’t _want to_ , could taste blood from where he’d bit into his hand, could feel tears running over his knuckles, could feel—

Colin’s hands on his shoulders, grounding him, reminding him of where he was.

“Stefan—”

“ _Phaedra!_ ” Stefan’s eyes flew open, meeting Colin’s own just in time to watch them grow wide.

Stefan put all of his energy into holding Colin’s gaze, into not collapsing into a heap in front of him, into _making sure he knew_. Colin’s grip on his shoulders was growing tighter. Stefan had never seen him like this before: face blown open, stock-still, _hopeful_.

Stefan let out a long, choked breath. It had worked. He'd done it. He could  _rest_.

He let his head fall forward, the top of it just barely pressing into Colin’s chest; brought his bleeding hand up to curl in the hem of Colin’s shirt. What happened next didn’t matter to him anymore: this had worked, so other things could work. He would just have to train, that’s all. He could do that.

Stefan could feel Colin’s heartbeat growing quicker by the second. A few moments later, there was a hand in Stefan’s hair, shaking and tentative. Stefan felt like he was about to die.

“Interesting choice,” Colin said. It was shaky, by his standards. Then, the world went dark.

* * *

Stefan woke up in his bed.

 _Alright, then_ , he thought, getting up to meet his dad for breakfast. _Point Stefan._

He ate both cereals, mixed. His dad told him he needed be more decisive.

He thought of Colin, and he smiled.

He had so much work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skjdlsdj I wrote this in like zero time and it is NOT edited but lmk what you think! I'd love to continue this I had a great time with it haha
> 
> also: yea phaedra's a song but like. if u choose now 2 he says "compilations" not "eurythmics" so who's to say he's limited to band names? you rly gonna ask a man in pain to say "tangerine dream" ?? thats so many syllables!!! (these are all things i say to help myself sleep at night after posting this and subsequently realizing i got it wrong)
> 
> (also also I'm on tumblr @greatcomets and on twitter @supersteels if you want to talk!)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading !! I went back and edited the first chapter because I wrote it at literally 3 AM and it was uhh... not great in places. Should be better now. Anyway. Enjoy!
> 
> (CW for suicide/suicidal thoughts/ideation in this one, all in a canon-typical way)

This was bad.

This was _very_ fucking bad.

Stefan was pacing the kitchen floor, nails digging into his palms, glancing around at the ashtray, the window, the backyard—any direction but down.

This was supposed to be it. He was growing stronger now, and the smaller impulses were nothing to him anymore ( _and thank God for that_ , he would often think, fast-forwarding to a different track on his Thompson Twins cassette. There was only so much "Hold Me Now"  a guy could take, after all).

And, like an idiot, he had thought that maybe, just _maybe_ , he was ready to _not_ kill his dad this time.

“Well, Stefan?” he choked out, trying his hardest not to dry heave. “Guess you got what you _fucking_ wanted!” He was hyperventilating now, hands gripping at the edges of his kneecaps. The pain was a relief.

He had been so, so close to getting it right, managing to change the arc of the ashtray just enough to barely clip the side of his dad’s head. He went down instantly, like always, but there was no blood this time, and Stefan saw—could _still_ see, he realized, finally forcing himself to look at his father’s face—his chest rising and falling. For a wonderful, fleeting second, Stefan had thought he’d really saved his dad.

The script, however, was unrelenting. His dad was still on the kitchen floor, Stefan still standing above him. What came next should have been obvious.

 **BURY BODY**                    ** _CHOP UP BODY_**

Stefan couldn’t do this. He was crying, probably, and every part of him felt too numb, too heavy. He needed to die.

“ _Okay_ ,” he said, “okay, I’ll—I’m getting the saw. I promise.”

The pressure in his head let up, just a little. It was enough.

Stefan stumbled his way over to the phone, gasping for breath. He had the number memorized; had thought it might be useful, if he could ever bring himself to use it.

“Well, this is new.”

“ _Colin_. Thank...” his stomach lurched. He couldn’t hold it off for much longer. “He’s—I didn’t. Need you to kill me.”

There was some rustling on Colin’s end: a jacket, maybe, and some keys. “Thought that was your job.”

Stefan’s lungs felt like they were about to burst through his ribs, or collapse, or both. It would’ve been pointless trying to respond.

“Stefan?” Stefan was gripping the stairs for dear life. _Fuck_ , he wanted to give in, but the thought of his dad’s eyes snapping open in the bathtub was keeping him on track for the time being. This was the part he hated: after a while, the impulses—the huge, life-changing ones especially—became his own desires. “I’m hanging up now. Be there soon.”

Stefan hugged his knees to his chest, screwed his eyes shut, and waited.

* * *

The last few runs had been better, or at least less eventful: shared glances, lingering handshakes, passed notes ( _“Do you remember when I killed you?” / “Which time?”_ ), each hurting just a little less than the last. It was nice, for once, to not be alone, even if Stefan’s heart sank every time the person controlling him made Colin jump off the balcony. It wasn’t forever, he knew, but the run after that was his least favorite kind. No Colin, to him, had begun to mean no hope.

Once, when he had thought he was strong enough, Stefan had tried to kiss him. Colin had been straddling the balcony wall, one hand on the roof, and Stefan had approached him, slowly, landing with one hand on Colin’s jaw, his thumb brushing over his lips.

He couldn’t have gone further without it hurting—not yet, anyway. Eventually, Colin pulled Stefan’s hand off of his face, held it for a moment.

“See you around.” It was quieter than usual. An apology and a promise all in one.

Stefan nodded, let go of Colin’s hand. Apologized to Kitty on his way out.

Next time, he would. Next time.

* * *

When Colin arrived, Stefan was standing over his father with the hacksaw.

“Right, then. Give it here.”

Stefan looked up at him, wild-eyed and pleading. “No, no, not with this, you—”

“I won’t. Promise.” Stefan looked him over, then nodded and handed over the saw. Colin broke it over his knee and pocketed the halves. Stefan eyed the pocket like it could save him for good.

Colin nudged Stefan’s dad with his foot. His hand twitched, but he stayed unconscious.

“You did this on purpose?”

Stefan shook his head. “I mean, yes—no—I don’t know. I didn’t pull it far enough away.” He was about to cry, could hear it in his own voice, hated himself for it.

“This is good, Stefan. You know that, right? This is progress.”

Stefan shoved his hands deep into his pockets. Already, he was glancing around the kitchen, looking for anything sharp enough to replace the hacksaw. His chest felt like it was on fire. “I should’ve built up to this.”

Colin shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Does it hurt? Being here?”

“Not horribly. Killing you will, I’d imagine.”

Stefan nodded, then kept nodding for a few seconds too long. “Sorry.”

Colin bit the inside of his cheek, furrowed his eyebrows. Looked Stefan up and down. Let his eyes soften, just a little. “Not your fault.”

Stefan looked at the floor. His body was screaming at him to lunge for the knife drawer, and his brain was starting to agree. Colin must have noticed.

“Count to ten. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Stefan nodded, shutting his eyes and digging the heels of his palms into his eyelids until he saw stars. Behind him, he could hear Colin taking the stairs two at a time. _Shit_ , he was supposed to be counting—but it was too late, and his vision was going red, and if he could _just_ get the knife drawer open, he could—

“Sorry about this,” Stefan heard from behind him, and then, just like that, he was dead.

* * *

Colin dropped the trophy, stepping back from Stefan’s corpse. He had never done this before, wasn’t supposed to _have_ to do this. If he was shaking, nobody was around to notice.

He knelt down, smoothed Stefan’s hair, closed his eyes for him. Kissed the top of his head in one timeline, didn't in another. Called the police on his way out.

When Colin got home, he ignored Kitty, straightened his jacket, and headed straight for the balcony. Best to speed things along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so so much for reading !! this chapter (like the last one lol) was kind of a rush job, and i haven't written fic (or anything else) in around 80 years, but lmk what you think if u want! lol love you guys
> 
> like before, if you want to talk, you can find me on tumblr @greatcomets & on twitter @supersteels :')


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for...self-harm? Sort of? Be safe, kids

Stefan woke up at the beginning of the loop. He wasn’t sure if that was progress, or if whoever was controlling him had just wanted to start over. He tried not to dwell on it.

Frosties. Thompson Twins (“Doctor! Doctor!,” this time. Not “Hold Me Now.” _Never_ “Hold Me Now”). Get off the bus, stare up at the building, go up to meet Thakur, see—

“Yeah, that’s his desk over there. I’d introduce you, but no one’s heard from him in around a month. Wish I could tell you where he fucks off to.” Thakur was already starting toward the conference room. Stefan, on the other hand, was frozen in place, eyes locked onto Colin’s empty desk.

It took a few seconds for Thakur to notice he wasn’t being followed. “You okay, mate?”

“Yeah, um.” Stefan was blinking too fast, he knew. “I’ve played all of his games.”

Thakur laughed. “Well, don’t let him hear you say that. Between you and me, he’s a right prick. Come on,” he said, putting a hand on Stefan’s back to guide him to the conference room, “you two’ll meet at some point. I’m telling you, you’ll hate him.”

Panicking about this was stupid, Stefan knew, but Colin was always there at the beginning. _Always_.

“—he’s the thief of Destiny. In the book, I mean,” Stefan heard himself say.

Was it possible to knock the timeline so far out of position that one of them disappeared for good?

“Stefan! You there, mate?”

Stefan jumped, turning to look at Thakur. “Yeah, ‘course. Sorry.”

“I said, what’s your answer?”

 _Please, just give me this. Make this one quick_. Stefan felt a manic smile spread over his face, nodded slightly.

“No.”

_Shit._

* * *

The timeline passed by in a blur of spilled tea and tugged earlobes. Talk about Mom. Phaedra. Shout at Dad. Walk away from Dr. Haynes’ office. Find an alley. Watch yourself scream and dry-heave and punch the wall and cry until your cheeks are numb and your dad finds you curled up behind a dumpster, hands-eyes-face all cartoon-red. Talk to Dr. Haynes. Bite nails. Flush them. Go to Tuckersoft. Hold the documentary tape in your bandaged hands and stare through it until the urge to move hurts too much to ignore.

_Destroy computer. Please. Please._

Hit desk. Take book. PAX. Throw tea over computer.

And Stefan, half-conscious, slumped over his desk, took advantage of the only loophole the script had ever afforded him: refusing to refuse the order. It was a new ending, but an ending all the same. No shouts to the heavens, no Netflix, no fighting Dr. Haynes; just a clean slate, and hopefully— _God_ , hopefully—Colin, alive and well.

**_GO BACK?_ **

Stefan stood above his father’s corpse, eyes raised to the heavens.

“Bury body. Bury body. _Please_ , just this once.”

 ** _BURY BODY_                   ** **CHOP UP BODY**

Stefan closed his eyes, rubbed his hands up and down the length of his face. “ _Thank you_.”

The phone rang; he answered. Thakur asked if he’d have the game; he said yes. Minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Going to answer it, Stefan felt hope for the first time since July.

“Well, you need a hand.”

The Colin Ritman, at his doorstep, in all his glory. Stefan would’ve cried, if every step out of line with the script didn’t feel like a shot to the stomach.

“Come on. Lead me to it.” Colin’s whole body was tense, eyes scanning Stefan up and down like he was looking for holes. Stefan wondered if he was tired, too.

 _I thought you were dead. I thought I killed you._ “To what?”

Colin took one step forward, then another, and then he was pulling Stefan into a hug, sliding one hand into his hair and wrapping an arm around his waist, and Stefan wished he could tell him what it felt like after months of _Bandersnatch_ and biting his nails and thinking he was going to be alone forever, but he didn’t think he could’ve even if the script would have let him speak.

“We’ll go upstairs and get this over with,” Colin mumbled. “Next time round’s always better, yeah?” Stefan managed to nod slightly into Colin’s shoulder, instantly regretting the feeling it sent through his skull.

“Right. Come on, then. Bandersnatch.”

* * *

“Fucking hell. You’ve gone right down the hole, mate. Right down it.”

Stefan gripped the knife tighter, grit his teeth. “I killed my dad.”

Colin was staring at the scar tissue on Stefan’s knuckles. “Right. So, are you gonna let me go, or are you gonna kill me?”

They waited.

“You weren’t there,” said Stefan, and each word caught in his throat like a knife.

Stefan thought—no, _knew_ he saw Colin freeze, if only for a fraction of a second. “Got bored. Jumped.”

“I thought I’d fucked the timeline. Killed you for good.” Stefan was crying now, from pain and worse.

“Stefan.” Colin’s face was tense, calculating.

A pause. Somewhere, in some future, a ten-second timer ended.

“I’m sorry.”

Colin blinked. “Alright. No point arguing about it. Not with that, though. They sting.” Colin took his time picking up the paperweight, staring it down from all angles. He didn’t look at Stefan.

“Do you know how many times I had to go through this thinking you didn’t know me?”

Stefan swallowed, looked down. He was getting strong again, or at least more adjusted to the pain. Colin grounded him; always had. “I—I dunno, I think I lost count after twelve.”

Colin set down the paperweight harder than usual; gripped it for a second longer before letting it go. He picked up the trophy, held it out, and raised his eyes to meet Stefan’s. “Two hundred and six.”

Stefan pulled him forward by the trophy and kissed him, _hard_ , and it felt like his skin being torn from his body.

**_GO BACK?_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEESH this took me a hot minute to structure. still not sure i'm entirely happy with it, but c'est la vie. it's also 3:30 am, so don't be shocked if i come back in tomorrow and make some tweaks to some stuff that isn't sitting right. i'm trying to outline the next chapter right now, which is. hm. might need to pop on a chapter 5, kids. We Shall See. it doesn't matter right now though because the boys kissed! halle-fuckin-lujah! wish charlie brooker woulda done that for us but that's just the way the cookie crumbles, babes.
> 
> anyway, thank you so much again for reading! you guys' comments really make my day (as do the fics y'all are posting in the tag because you KNOW i'm refreshing it constantly when i'm procrastinating on writing this !!!). luv you all, if you want to contact me outside the ao3 i'm still on tumblr @greatcomets and on twitter @supersteels! i hope you all have an awesome day !!!
> 
> (p.s. sry if this note is incoherent i had. an amount of champagne during the golden globes and then came back to write the second half of this lol! the hollywood foreign press association said rami rights!)


	4. Chapter 4

_Run #289._

“I threw a book at my dad today,” Stefan said, reaching across the coffee table to take the joint from Colin.

Colin leaned back in his chair, raising his eyebrows. “New path?”

Stefan exhaled smoke straight upwards, then lowered his head to meet Colin’s eyes again. “No, same effect. Just tired of shouting at him, I guess.”

Colin laughed, barely. “Fair enough.” He picked up the box of tabs, holding it out to Stefan. “Here’s yours.”

“Thanks,” said Stefan, taking one off the top of the pile.

“Cheers.”

“Yeah, sure, cheers.” They put the tabs on their tongues, sat back, and waited.

Eventually, Colin grinned. It was wide, and it was evil, and it was a face he would never, ever make sober. Stefan lived for it.

“You ready?” he said, bracing himself to stand up.

Stefan glared at him, but he knew he was smiling, too. Three timelines in a row, they’d ended up here. That was rare for them. “Just get on with it.”

Colin took a deep, deep breath in.

“People think there’s one reality, but there’s loads of them, all snaking off like roots.”

_Run #308._

They had been practicing whenever they could. Complete freedom would have seemed in reach, were it not for two things: the huge decisions (Stefan, for instance, still hadn’t managed to affect his Dad’s fate in any substantial way), and the speech Colin made every time he was on acid. Somehow, the universe—or God, or Netflix, or Jerome F. Davies himself—had decided that so much of the universe hinged on one paranoia-fueled, conspiracy-filled rant that it couldn’t be broken—at least, not _yet_. They still had a few ideas left.

“ _—differentchoiceswhenyoumakeadecisionyouthinkit’syoudoingitbutit’snotit’sthespiritouttherethat’sconnectedtoourworldthatdecides—_ ”

Stefan was lying face-up on the couch, far too high for this. He was holding a pillow over his face. He screamed into it.

“ _—messagesineverygamelikePAC-MandoyouknowwhatPACstandsforP-A-Cprogramandcontrolhe’sprogramandcontrolmanthewholethingsametaphorhethinkshe’sgotfreewill—”_

Colin was perched, red-faced, on the arm of the couch, the perfect picture of concentration. Stefan couldn’t remember the last time he saw him breathe.

“— _it’snotahappygameit’safuckingnightmareworldandtheworstthingiswe—_ ”

Stefan threw the pillow at him. Colin kept going, unperturbed.

 _“—hearthenumbersthere’sacosmicflowchartthatdictateswhereyoucanandwhereyoucan’tgo_ —” and Colin was standing now, dragging Stefan towards the balcony, catching him by the sides of his face just when he thought he was going to fall.

“I’ve given you the knowledge,” he said, breathing heavily, “I’ve set you free. Do you understand?”

Stefan looked at him, idly spiking up his hair where it had gone flat. Colin’s whole head was distorting, imploding slightly at its centre. “I—I think you’ve just—”

“Just sped it along, yeah.”

Stefan grinned. He got it. “Yeah.”

“Alright. You or me?”

“Um.” Stefan slumped back against the wall. Waited a bit. “Me, I think.”

Colin raised his eyebrows. “Been a while.”

“Yeah. Can you—help me up?”

Colin took Stefan’s hand, pulling him away from the wall. Stefan climbed over to stand on the outside of the balcony ledge, then turned to look over his shoulder.

“We’ll try again next time, yeah?”

Colin stepped forward, leaning over to just barely brush his lips against Stefans’. He pulled back; watched Stefan’s eyes grow wide, a delirious grin spread all over his face.

“See you around,” said Colin, and Stefan let go.

_Run #324._

“Like Pac-Man?”

“—Like Pac-Man. Do you know what PAC stands for?”

Stefan lay upside-down on the couch, knees hooked over the back, head hanging off of the edge. The ceiling was turning. “Program and—?”

“—Program and control.”

“Some insight there, Col.”

Colin was lying face-up on the coffee table, eyes closed, arms and legs spread wide. He reached over and half-heartedly hit Stefan on the top of his head. “He’s Program And Control man. The whole thing’s a metaphor.”

“Did you come up with this?”

“He thinks he’s got free will, but really he’s trapped in a maze, in a system. All he can do is consume. He’s pursued by demons that are probably just in his own head, and even if he does manage to escape by slipping out one side of the maze, what happens?”

“I just mean,” Stefan braced himself up and spun to sit correctly on the couch, “it had to come from somewhere, so? You must have meant all of this at some point. Do you still?”

Colin opened his eyes to glare at Stefan. “He comes right back in the other side.”

“Sorry. Sorry, sorry.” Stefan scrubbed his hands over his face; exhaled roughly. “Carry on.”

_Run #356._

“Have—have you tried just not talking?”

Colin took the lid off the tab box. “Hurts.”

Stefan scoffed. “Everything hurts.”

Colin looked him in the eye. “ _Hurts_.”

Stefan shifted a little; leaned forward to take his tab. “Right, yeah. Of course. Sorry.”

_Run #374._

“— _dictateswhereyoucanandwhereyoucan’tgoI’vegivenyoutheknowledgeI’vesetyoufreedoyouunderSTAND!”_ Stefan jumped up, hands in the air.

“ _—I’vesetyoufreedoyouunderstand_ ,” Colin paused to gasp for breath, “ _f_ _uck me_ , you’re fast.”

_Run #389_. 

“Um, yeah, I’m—shit, hang on—” Stefan paused, moving to hold the phone between his ear and his shoulder, slapping his hand away from his earlobe. He looked up at the ceiling. “Fuck off. _No_ , not you, sorry. I’m at Dr. Haynes’ place. Guess I’ll see you.”

Dr. Haynes shifted in her seat. “Stefan, we should be starting soon.”

Stefan nodded at her, then turned his attention back to the phone. “Yeah. Yeah, ‘course. You too. Bye.” He hung the phone back up on Dr. Haynes’ wall and sat down.

Dr. Haynes started, “Stefan, I was thinking—”

“Right, yeah, meds. Sure. You know best.” He looked up at her, leg bouncing impatiently. “Can I go?”

_Run #402._

They stood on opposite ends of the room: Stefan by the records, Colin by the balcony. Colin was staring at him, grinning wildly.

Stefan furrowed his brow. “What?”

Colin laughed a little, rocking back and forth on his feet.

Stefan cracked a small smile. “Colin, what is it?”

Colin shook his head. He was laughing hard, but completely silently. Stefan could’ve sworn he saw tears. “ _Program and Control_.”

Stefan laughed so hard his lungs felt raw in the next timeline.

_Run #451._

They were both on the floor, this time: Stefan’s head on Colin’s chest, Colin’s hand in his hair, both of them sharing a joint.

“—And what we do on one path affects what happens on the other paths.”

Stefan shifted a little. “It’s just, you know. This is the longest it ever lets us be alone.”

“Time is a construct. People think you can’t go back and change things, but you can.”

“And I sort of—I just wish we could _talk?”_

“That’s what flashbacks are. They’re invitations to go back and make different choices.”

“Sorry. I’m high. Sorry.”

Colin reached over and squeezed his hand.

_Run #484._

“—Another Tuckersoft protégé, famed programmer Colin Ritman, believes there are important lessons to be learned from Butler's unravelling.”

“What would you say to Stefan, if he could hear you?”

Colin leaned back in his chair; looked directly into the camera. “I’d tell him I love him, and I’ll see him soon.”

_Run #485._

“What do you listen to?” Colin’s face was blank, level.

Stefan glared at him, already pulling him in. “Oh, fuck off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!! sorry it's been a million years (a few days (a million years)) since i updated, but i hope you guys like this one (???) (also cool if not! no worries). i've been sitting with it for a while trying to figure out how to format it/what order to put everything in, and to be honest i wasn't even gonna end it here until i realized that was a better option than what i had planned, but here we are! lmk what you think i guess (or dont! free country/countries)! see you guys later!
> 
> (& as always, tumblr @greatcomets, twitter @supersteels, my love @ u!)


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